The invention relates to the technical field of civil engineering works and more specifically to the construction and fitting-out of roads such as highways and superhighways. More specifically, the invention relates to a new type of crash barrier installed at the edges of such roads. It also envisages a method and a machine for erecting these barriers.
As is known, expressways and especially superhighways have, on their verges, or at the edge of the carriageway, barriers that form crash barriers. These barriers generally consist of longitudinal elements placed end to end and having a given profile that can tolerate a certain amount of deformation and thus push back toward the center of the carriageway any vehicles which hit them.
These barriers are commonly mounted on vertical supports and are at the same time secured together by means of members passing through holes pierced opposite each other from one barrier to the next. This state of the art can be illustrated by the teaching of patent U.S. Pat. No. 4,330,106 which discloses a crash barrier mounted between two support elements comprising, at each of its ends, an overlapping region which, on the one hand, allows it to be secured to adjacent barriers by means of members of the bolt type passing through holes pierced opposite each other from one barrier to the next and, on the other hand, allows it to be secured to said support elements by means of members passing through the orifices provided opposite each other in the thickness of each barrier.
In general, this type of barrier is erected as follows.
First of all, the barriers are unloaded and laid out on the ground in line with their final location. Next, a support-erecting vehicle, also known as a pile driver, travels along the line and, at each overlap region, drives in a post. Next, two operators lift up the barrier to be erected and mount it on the support.
The next operation consists in securing the newly installed barrier to the previous one, using nut/bolt pairs. A heightwise adjustment then needs to be carried out before the bolts are definitively tightened. It goes without saying that all these operations are particularly troublesome and require a great deal of labor. Furthermore, such barriers are positioned entirely manually and empirically, and this increases the risks of error and the time taken.
The invention has set itself the task of overcoming these drawbacks.